Used to be the Trying Woodsman... as derived from the Flying Dutchman...
In this blog I'll post my outdooradventures and other things related to this topic...but I decided to expand my blogposts and topics to include homesteading, self reliance and all things related. Global and social developments on enviromental issues and associated economic or political issues... They'll all find a place too, somehow.

Monday, December 12, 2016

Gettin' christmassy 'n shit... dogsled style!

I have a hard time getting into a/the christmas -mood this year. It' still a long way off and I am spared all this commercial get-ready-for-christmas-in-october-routine, but still.
I sort of feel..... I don't know.... heavy, lustless.... until winter returned and gave us snow... a lot of it. Up to 35cm on sunday! That lifts the spirit!

But last friday, as I was walking the dogs on the daily afternoon long walk, I passed a piece of land that appeared very empty to me. One of the local farmers had cut down a handful of tall spruce trees and a thick layer of boughs was lying on the floor. Would make a good source of material for decorations! According the every man's right I would be allowed to take whatever I needed, but I still did ask permission first. It is the right thing to do.
I took my wife to the location, while walking the dogs on saturday, showing her the amount of spruce boughs on the ground and lo and behold, we even found ourselves a christmas tree in the pile. I got this crazy idea of getting us a christmastree in style. There was snow on the ground, snow in the air, 2 sled dogs on our leashes and an old sled in the shed.... What better way then introducing Lester to the one thing he was born to do; pulling a sled!

That was easier said than done and knowing how Rex reacted the first time last year and showing his hesitation this time too, we anticipated Lester's reaction. What we did not anticipate was first his strong dislike (had to physically wrestle him a little in order to realign him with the sled) and his joy and above all physical power, as soon as he got the hang of it. And that was pretty fast, too!! And I loved it too!! What a joy it is to see and feel such a dog doing what he was meant to do. He was chugging ahead, pulling a not too light sled, loaded with a sizeable spruce tree, laden with snow. For a short time we also tried the same with Rex, but he lacked the power. Mind you, both are not trained... at all! We'll remedy that this winter. But already we can see Lester becoming more muscular, more beefy. He has reached his height, now he is increasing his volume.
Unfortunately we had to use an old pulka and within a few 100 meters one of the leather straps failed. It simply snapped. Rotten. We had to improvise, using the leash, but that worked out quite alright. Because of that I had to walk next to Lester and was thus able to hold him back. He was going!!

1 comment:

This is great about Lester. I wish we had some cows for our border collie. Alas, our fences are too rickety and we're too broke to be able to fix them right now. Some dogs really need jobs. Yes, this is great about Lester.

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